Voices inside my head

A friend of mine--we'll call her Patty--said something to me recently that really hit a nerve. In talking about her current relationship, which, unfortunately, is coming to a difficult but amicable end, Patty mentioned that she and her soon-to-be-ex don't really have sex anymore. They used to fuck like crazed lunatics in every room of the house. She attributes this lack-o-sex to the fact that both she and the soon-to-be have gained a good deal of weight these past two years together, and neither of them is thinking very highly of their bodies, let alone the mashing together of said bodies while in the throes of sexual ecstacy.

Does the old adage "fat and happy" apply here? I mean, it seems as though, since Patty and her lover are parting ways (irreconcilable differences cited), there might have been some rough seas over the course of the past 24 months, and that the adage should be amended to "fat and unhappy." After all, misery loves to be fed. Cram the food hole with goodies and surely your pain will disappear. For me, happiness is light, leans toward sustenance for sustenance's sake, and is peppered with the occasional night on the town replete with dinner for two at a snazzy restaurant, maybe a bottle of wine, perhaps a sinfully chocolate dessert, then the quick trip home, the falling to bed to bed, the hours burning off aforementioned dinner and the delicious lolling, playing with one anothers fingers, stroking the nape of the just-falling-asleep head. Happiness is an appetite well-earned.

But what of that very real feeling that your body just isn't up to snuff? I once had a lover who didn't see my body in full light for two years (I kid you not) and that was 30, maybe 40 lbs. ago. True, this lover was also a dead ringer for Twiggy circa-1972, the flat-chested, long distance runner's body type. I was terribly self-conscious about the way our bodies fit--or didn't fit--together. No amount of praise or coaxing or reassurance could change the way I perceived myself. And so it goes, so it's gone, for many years.

Now I find myself married to a stunning woman who, like those before her, tries to convince me (almost daily) that I'm beautiful. She makes me move my hands when I use them to cover my stomach post-shower. She looks at me as though I am Venus come to life and I am not one to blow off such adoration. But the glitch is this: she too is overweight. In my mind, this "flaw" negates her authority, makes her less able to dole out compliments because, well, of course I'm beautiful! Fat girls love their fellow fat girls! We need to stick together, after all. We need to believe, while planning our next meal, that we aren't damaged beyond recognition, that our skin isn't really stretched to it's breaking, stretchmarked point. I'm trying to be better about taking what S. says to heart. I am. But it kills me to hear her say, in response to my "you are so great" or something to that effect, "Can you believe I was alone so long?" because where does this mind go? It goes to a place where rationality is as scarce as veal piccata at a vegetarian potluck. It goes something like: "Why was she alone for so long? Because no one thought her attractive? Because she was fat? Did you find her attractive out of pity? Did you think you could 'save' her from her life of lonliness and two liters of coke and box mac and cheese? That you could bestow upon her your charm and good looks and she would forever be indebted to you because you chose to love her?"

I told you. Not a rational voice in the entire fucking din.

Last Sunday, on 60 Minutes, there was a story about Gabriela Montero, a virtuoso pianist who is taking the world by storm. Her talent does not pivot on her ability to play a concerto perfectly, but rather on her ability to veer from the notes on the page into a whole alternate world of improvisation. For years, this gift was snubbed by the classical music world. It was as if they didn't know where to put her, how to categorize this musical iconoclast. But my point is this: Montero talked of how she hears music all the time, how she can't turn it off. "It can get annoying," she said. I couldn't help but think of my own brain, un-virtuosoed as it is, constantly spinning thoughts about food and weight and ideals and judgments. It never stops. This heightened awareness is a constant state of being for me, and an albatross. If I eat something high in calories or fat, like the delectable shrimpy cheesy dip I gorged myself on at a recent party, there's a voice in my head that's screaming "Weak ass punk! STEP AWAY from the shrimpy cheesy!" If I eat a sensible salad with low fat dressing for dinner (like I did last night), I hear "What else ya got? You just gonna eat that?" Meanwhile, S. has made herself a salad too and I can't see the lettuce for the dressing. The voice that emerges in that particular moment is the most onerous of all, and it shrieks things I cannot bear to write here. It's all projection (right?), but the words that sit on my tongue are cold-hearted and ugly, and should never see the light of day.

More on this...more. Soon.